N.J. Constitutional Convention: Vol. 4, Page 443

STATE OF NEW JERSEY CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION OF 1947COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARYThursday, July 10, 1947 (Afternoon session)

may be, with the Associate Justices. That language is a little more narrow than it should be - a court of appeals or courts of appeals, as the case may be. Now, in New York the Governor designates the presiding judge of the Court of Appeals and, I understand, also designates the members of the Court of Appeals. I don't approve of that.

MR. BROGAN: The Appellate Division, you mean.

GOVERNOR DRISCOLL: The Appellate Division. I believe that that is part of the judicial process of government and rests with the courts themselves. I am afraid I haven't clearly answered your question. I would prefer not to have it a constitutional court, and yet the dangers incident to leaving it out of the Constitution are sufficiently great to lead me to the conclusion that perhaps it would be preferable from a practical point of view to spell it out in the Constitution.

MR. BROGAN: The dilemma, as I see it, is this: If there is to be a general trial, a complete final trial some place, and one appeal, if that is left to a Court of Appeals of seven men, I am afraid, and I am sure you will agree, that they would be entirely submerged if they had to take every case.

GOVERNOR DRISCOLL: I agree with you. I would not for one moment permit all appeals to go to this top court of seven men. If that were permitted, it would prevent us from doing the very think we want to do, namely, permit the top court to concentrate on top legal and factual questions.

MR. BROGAN: I want to give you the other horn of the dilemma: if you were to have a screening court and the top court - well, we call it a screeening court, appellate division, whatever you like - and the top court were to take cases on appeal in which there was a constitutional question or in which there was great public interest or on which there had been a division in the screening court, it might come about that the top court would not have enough to do. That is a question that is bothering me, and I was wondering if it had bothered you a little?

GOVERNOR DRISCOLL: Mr. Chief Justice Brogan, I have considered that question. That question did bother me, but after considering the sum total of all the cases that are being brought to issue each year in New Jersey, and running the gauntlet from workmen's compensation to cases involving serious constitutional questions, I have reached the conclusion that there would be a sufficient amount of work for our seven members of the top court. I assume that if they were given the broad rule-making authority that I believe they should be given, they themselves would be able to control that situation and to enlarge or diminish the number of cases that might be presented to the top court, very much as the